DISCLAIMERS: I DO NOT OWN TRANSFORMERS
|PROLOGUE|
A million years isn't much, as the galaxy spins. Stars are older. Nebulae are older. Drifting shards of unidentifiable matter and splinters of subatomic not yet named were considerably older still.
For human beings, though, a million years was a very long time. It's a small step back in time, but one that extends way past humankind's first feeble scratchings as a civilization. Before they could be counted as even moderately intelligent creatures.
There are other entities Out There, however, for whom a million years is a simple, measurable, comprehensible passing of time. Beings made of sterner stuff both mentally as well as materially. Intelligence's straightforward yet fast, to whom humanity's petty everyday concerns would be of no more concern than those of an ant to a strolling human.
Sometimes these beings pause to contemplate the universe. Sometimes they raise monuments and works that would stun into permanent silence the most imaginative humans. Sometimes they embark on and bring to fruition good works.
And sometimes...sometimes they are not nice.
Sam Witwicky underlined the last five words in her notebook as she sat in the back of her history class, waiting for her last teacher of the day, Mr. Hosney to call her name.
While she waited, Sam thought about how fucked up her life had become. She still couldn't believe what had happened to her.
(FLASHBACK)
When her digital alarm clock's radio clicked on the first thing Sam noticed when she woke up was that she couldn't see. Everything was completely, 100 percent black. And it was eerily quiet. No crickets, no garbage trucks rumbling past the house, no whistling teakettles—nothing. Nothing except something really loud and annoying blaring from her alarm.
"Shut up," Sam muttered into her pillow. With her eyes still closed, she reached out and tried to hit the clock's snooze button. She missed three times before she knocked the clock off her night table. When the radio went silent, she hoped she'd broken it permanently.
She opened her eyes and tried to climb out of bed. "Ow!" She grunted as she stubbed her toe. Who had moved her nightstand?
"Dammit!" She hissed as stumbled into what she thought was her bookshelf. It was so dark in the room, she couldn't see a thing.
Sam reached up to touch her eyes. There was something over them. She was wearing a sleep mask? That explained it. Well, sort of, because she'd never worn a sleep mask to bed before.
She took the mask off, blinking in the sudden brightness. "What the hell?" she muttered, glancing around the room.
It looked nothing like her room. Like at all.
Which was worrying because Sam knew she'd gone to sleep in her room. So why the hell am I here? she wondered, her heart starting to race in her chest.
If that wasn't enough, she caught sight of a full-length mirror hanging on the wall and froze.
She wasn't alone.
"Who are you?" Sam demanded, turning to the girl who was standing behind her. But...the girl was gone! She turned back to the mirror. There was the girl again. A little taller than her, with dark-brown hair and brown eyes wearing nothing but a pair of black boxers and a t-shirt.
Sam lifted her hand—the girl in the mirror lifted her hand too. Wait a second... Sam touched her face. The girl touched his face.
"Wake up! Sam, you'll be late for school!"
Sam yanked her hand away from her face. For one delirious moment, she thought that the voice was unfamiliar. Then like a freight train, a lifetime of memories hit her at once.
(FLASHBACK)
"Sam, you're up," Mr. Hosney called.
Lost in her head, Sam didn't hear a thing. I mean, why me? she thought. Leaning over from his seat at the desk next to hers, Sam's best friend, Miles snapped his fingers in front of her face.
"Sam. Dude—Earth. Now."
Sam jumped up, grabbed her backpack along with a cardboard chart whose title spelled out in neat writing My Family Genealogy, and walked to the front of the room.
She propped her cardboard visual aid against the blackboard and turned to face the usual assortment of friends and hecklers. From the memories of her 'second life', Sam knew the latter outweighed the former by a distressingly large margin.
"Okay, so for my family genealogy report," Sam began confidently. "I picked my great-great-great-grandfather, Captain Archibald Witwicky. He was one of the first guys to ever sail north of the Arctic Circle."
From behind his desk, Mr. Hosney looked on with a mixture of subdued expectation and in the back of the class, Sam saw Trent DeMarco leaning over toward Mikaela Banes whispering in her ear. Having just recently binged the Transformers movies Sam knew what was coming next and as she opened her backpack she lifted it up just enough to block the paper hornet DeMarco fired at her with a rubber band.
Determined to get through the school day as fast as possible, Sam didn't bother retaliating. She laid out Archibald Witwicky's artifacts on the table. A compass...a sextant...and an old-fashioned pair of glasses. Battered, broken, missing parts, and badly worn, they were of no interest to the collectors on eBay. Collectors wanted gear that was in pristine condition, not stuff that looked as though it had been left outside—well, outside in the Arctic—for years and years.
This was supposed to be the part where she tried to sell the artifacts to her classmates. Which was stupid considering Sam needed three A's to get a car. She wasn't going to be forced to beg her teacher for a better grade.
"Years of suffering through bouts of recurrent hypothermia affected my great-great-great-grandfather physically and mentally." Sam held up a newspaper clipping from 1897.
The headline read: Arctic Adventurer Alleges Ice Man Found!
Beneath it was a picture of Captain Witwicky, holding up crude sketches of cybertronian symbols.
"During his last voyage, he went completely blind and according to the crew had a mental breakdown. When he returned home he spent the rest of his natural life in an asylum drawing strange symbols and telling anyone who would listen about a giant iceman."
A few "oohs" and "aahs" came from students too drained from the school day to do anything other than actually listen to her.
Turning, she pointed to a blown-up copy of the newspaper clipping she was holding. Below the captain's picture was another photo, this one of some of the crude symbolic sketches Captain Witwicky had been obsessed with during his institutionalization. Though easy to see in the surprisingly sharp old photograph, they made no sense to Mr. Hosney or anyone in the class. Just as they had made no sense to the doctors who had attempted to treat Archibald Witwicky.
Sam didn't even know what they meant. All she knew was that they were cybertronian.
Before she could start speaking again, the bell rang. As the students filed out, Mr. Hosney spoke over the commotion. "Thank you, everyone! Might be a pop quiz tomorrow. Might not. Sleep in fear tonight."
Sam lingered behind curious to see if her intervention in the presentation had changed anything. "If it's okay to ask—what's my grade?"
Leaning forward and looking to his left, Mr. Hosney took a moment to appraise the carefully crafted cardboard chart and spare a glance at the exhibition of banged-up old instruments. "I'd say a solid A. Good job, Witwicky."
"Yes!" At her teacher's raised brow Sam raised her hands up in apology. "Sorry, it's just last year my dad said when I turned sixteen he'd pay for half my first car if I got three A's and saved two thousand dollars."
"Ah, I remember my car. A 1970 Gremlin."
Sam glanced out the window as Mr. Hosney turned unexpectedly reflective. She could see Mr. Witwicky sitting in his car at the curb.
"Could you stamp the A on my paper before I leave?"
Mr. Hosney uncapped a red marker and marked her project with an A. Then he put a little plus sign next to it.
"You're the best, Mr. Hosney!" Sam said, gathering up her project and backpack. "I'll see you tomorrow!"
As she half-jogged out of the room, Mr. Hosney called to her back. "Remember, there may or may not be a pop quiz tomorrow!"
Ugh, way to bring down the mood. Sam muttered silently to herself walking out to the parking lot.
When she got outside, Ron Witwicky was checking his watch.
Sam jogged down the slope of grass outside the school and climbed in. She didn't even let him ask before holding up the cover sheet from her final report.
"Last class. End of quarter. You owe me two thousand dollars."
"Wait, wait—let me see?" Mr. Witwicky took the paper. He pulled it close and held it far away. "That is an A. I knew you could do it, Sam. After all, you're a Witwicky."
Sam almost flinched at the word. She sat stiffly in the passenger seat as they cruised away from the school. That's what I am now...a Witwicky, she thought, staring at the storefronts they whipped past.
She could remember doing this as a child. Pressing her face against the glass of the car window, watching drugstores and boutiques, cafes and garden centers, fast-food outlets and real estate offices: all shooting past the family car as she waited eagerly to catch sight of the one tourist shop in Tranquility that sold embroidered clothes, gimcracks, T-shirts, and—specialty candy.
Today she was still looking for candy but of a radically different kind.
As the sign in front of the local VW-Porsche dealership loomed larger ahead, Mr. Witwicky pulled into the dealership's parking lot, only to circle the expensive cars and veer back out onto the northbound lane.
"Got a little surprise for you, Sam. You're not getting a Porsche." He broke out in gentle hysterics.
Sam pressed back in her seat. "Good one," she sighed, unimpressed with the joke. It was more cruel than anything.
While Mr. Witwicky cracked up in the driver's seat, buoyant in his present glee, he didn't notice the battered, dented yellow '75 Camaro that was following them at a discreet distance.
But Sam noticed. Bumblebee, you're about to make me a lot of money, she thought, cracking a smile as they pulled into a used car lot. The garish sign out front identified it as Bolivia's Auto Resale. Gazing at the line of cars that in a few minutes would be rendered unsellable, Sam leaned forward in her seat.
"Let's make a deal—as repayment for your crappy joke."
"What kind of deal?" Mr. Witwicky asked as he parked the car. He was wary, but willing to listen.
Sam opened the door and climbed out as Mr. Witwicky exited from behind the wheel. "I saved two thousand dollars which you said you would match."
"That's right." Mr. Witwicky nodded.
"Okay, so what if I do the negotiating and keep the price under four thousand? Can I pay the amount your two thousand doesn't cover and keep the rest?"
Mr. Witwicky eyed her evenly. He was silent for an unusually long time—almost two seconds. "Okay, Sam, you've got a deal—but only if I approve the car first. Deal?"
Sam extended her hand to a willing but wary Mr. Witwicky. At that moment the owner, a shifty-looking Bernie Mac lookalike in a blue suit ran out of the used-car lot's office.
"Hiya, gentleman. Bobby Bolivia, at your service," he introduced himself, a professional welcoming smile plastered from ear to ear. "Like the country 'cept without the runs."
"My daughter, Sam here, she's looking to buy her first car," Mr. Witwicky explained.
Bobby grinned lopsidedly at Sam. "And you came to me? Well, that practically makes us family. Uncle Bobby B, baby."
Reaching out, he extended an arm around Sam's shoulders. Leading her down the row of cars, Bobby waxed poetry.
"I've been doing this a long time kid." Sam wrinkled her nose at the unique odor coming from Bobby's mouth. "That first enchilada of freedom's just waiting under one of these hoods. See, drivers don't pick their cars, no ma'am. Cars pick their drivers."
With his free hand, Bobby traced an imaginary arc across the cosmos.
"It's a mystical bond between man and machine. Now, I'm a lot of things. A liar's not one of them. Especially not in front of my mammy."
Holding Sam's shoulders in a death grip, Bobby spun her around and pointed toward the house that occupied the lot next to the shop. On the front porch, an old woman sat rocking slowly in her chair.
"That's my mammy. Hey, mammy!" When the old woman responded nonverbally with a single finger Bobby's smile never wavered, but his tone grew dark. "If I had a rock I'd bust your head, bitch. Sammy she deaf, you know."
Bobby whirled her around again, laughing uncomfortably, and proceeded to escort her down the row of cars in the lot. Each car was uglier and more beat up than the next.
Finally, they reached the car Sam was looking for. She traced her finger along Bumblebee's cheaply affixed black racing stripes.
Bobby stared confusedly at the Camaro. "Wait. Where'd this come from?" He looked over his shoulder toward his office. "Manny!" he shouted. "What is this?"
Sam opened the Autobot's door. She slipped inside the car and behind the wheel closing the door. The cushion felt good, comfortable, the seatback providing just the right amount of resistance against her spine. She didn't even have to adjust it: it was just the right height and distance from the wheel.
A glint of light caught her eye. The symbol of the Autobots was emblazoned on the steering wheel. Sam rubbed her thumb over the symbol. This was insane—she was sitting inside an actual Autobot!
"How much?" Mr. Witwicky asked Bobby.
Bobby scratched his head. "Well, uh, considering the semi-classic nature of the vehicle, with the slick wheels and the custom paint job—"
"I'll give you two thousand dollars for it." Sam cut in.
"Two? For a Camaro? The body alone's worth that." Bobby peered sharply down at Sam. "Five thousand."
Mr. Witwicky shook his head. "We're not going above—"
"Two!" Sam interrupted again. She stared at Mr. Witwicky, trying to silently remind him of their deal.
He seemed to understand and held up his hands.
Bobby glowered and opened the car door. "Kid, get out of the car."
Sam climbed out of Camaro, unbothered and unworried. She had the perfect poker face because she knew, at the end of the day, she'd be driving Bumblebee out of the lot.
Turning to the yellow beetle sitting next to the Camaro, Bobby pointed proudly at the car. "Now, this one here's beautiful—"
He was cut off midsentence as Bumblebee's door swung open and slammed into the other car.
"Uh, no problem with that door. I can get a sledgehammer and knock that right out." Bobby yelled at his lot manager. "Manny! Get your clown cousin and get some hammers and come bang this stuff out!"
In the same breath, he gestured toward the farthest side of the lot. Sam followed Bobby a few steps up-lot before Bumblee's horn suddenly blared. The noise was so loud, everyone jumped, and all of the windows in every other car on the lot shattered.
Mr. Witiwcky pulled Sam to the ground, and she made sure her hand pressed down on some glass that had splintered onto the pavement. "Gotcha," she whispered, cringing at the stings of pain she felt on her palm.
"Oh, nooo!" Bobby screamed as he gaped at the destruction. Glass continued to spill all over the concrete, breaking off in dangerous shards. "Manny! Get out here!"
Mr. Witwicky grabbed Sam's hand and tried to lead her back to the customer parking area.
"Three thousand!" Bobby chased after them. He paused to catch his breath. "It's your lucky day! Because of the glitches, you can have the Camaro for three thousand."
Sam looked at Mr. Witwicky, then down at her bloody hand, and made sure Bobby saw it too before she finally looked back at the salesman. "One thousand." she retorted.
"One—that's," Bobby moaned, digging at his cheeks with the fingers of both hands.
He didn't have a choice. They both knew it. It'd cost thousands of dollars to replace all the windows Bumblebee had shattered. Never mind the money he'd lose in court if she decided to sue.
"Fifteen hundred?" Bobby winced as if his heart hurt him. "Fifteen hundred and it's yours."
Sam looked over at Mr. Witwicky. "Fifteen hundred?" Mr. Witwicky looked torn, but finally nodded.
I love it when a plan comes together, Sam jogged back to Bumblebee. Everything had turned out just the way she wanted. Bumblebee was with her, and she had twenty-five hundred dollars to spend.
While Mr. Witwicky went with Bobby to fill out the necessary paperwork, she slipped back behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition. Her seat vibrated as the powerful alien engine rumbled to life.
Ten minutes later Mr. Witwicky came back with fresh out of the printer papers. "You're all set," he leaned into the window, his expression dad-earnest. '"Make me one promise. If ever, for any reason, and I'm not pre-accusing you of anything here, you think you shouldn't be driving? Call me and I'll pick you up. Wherever you are, whatever I'm doing. No questions asked."
"Promise." Sam smiled back, sitting up proudly in her seat.
Mr. Witwitcky patted her on the arm and backed away from the car. "I'll see you at home, Sam."
Sam peeled out of the parking lot and succeeded in doing so without hitting anything except the car's accelerator. As she roared up the street she glanced down at the Autobot symbol on the wheel with one question running through her mind.
What now?
Transformers Self-Insert as Female Sam Whitwicky—because why not?